No rings, 53 million strong: Unmarried women could change election

CAMPAIGN 2008 They make up 25% of eligible voters, and pollster says they could swing the election

unmarried19_062_mac.jpg Courtney Harrell of San Francsico. For the first time ever in a presidential election year, unmarried women are expected to outnumber married ones � and some political operatives are identifying them as a voting bloc. From the liberal Greenberg pollsters (the folks who brought us �NASCAR Dad� voters) in October came the report �Unmarrieds Drive Political and Social Change� and from other liberal operatives came a reincarnation of their �Women Voices, Women�s Vote� campaign (complete with PSAs from the married Julia Louis-Dreyfus). Political operatives say unmarried women are the largest bloc of non-voters in the country. (cq-Courtney Harrell) Michael Macor / The Chronicle Photo taken on 11/15/07, in San Francisco, CA, USA less

unmarried19_062_mac.jpg Courtney Harrell of San Francsico. For the first time ever in a presidential election year, unmarried women are expected to outnumber married ones � and some political operatives are ... more

Photo: Macor

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unmarried19_062_mac.jpg Courtney Harrell of San Francsico. For the first time ever in a presidential election year, unmarried women are expected to outnumber married ones � and some political operatives are identifying them as a voting bloc. From the liberal Greenberg pollsters (the folks who brought us �NASCAR Dad� voters) in October came the report �Unmarrieds Drive Political and Social Change� and from other liberal operatives came a reincarnation of their �Women Voices, Women�s Vote� campaign (complete with PSAs from the married Julia Louis-Dreyfus). Political operatives say unmarried women are the largest bloc of non-voters in the country. (cq-Courtney Harrell) Michael Macor / The Chronicle Photo taken on 11/15/07, in San Francisco, CA, USA less

unmarried19_062_mac.jpg Courtney Harrell of San Francsico. For the first time ever in a presidential election year, unmarried women are expected to outnumber married ones � and some political operatives are ... more

Photo: Macor

No rings, 53 million strong: Unmarried women could change election

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Fifty-year-old Carmen Cortez cleans buildings until 1 a.m. as a janitor in San Francisco and lives with her adult son. Courtney Harrell is a 32-year-old lesbian working in the film industry who rents an apartment with three others. Kathleen Moschel is a 63-year-old Republican and former Hallmark card store owner who lives in the Contra Costa County retirement community of Rossmoor.

Despite those differences, some political operatives and pollsters are herding these women into the same sprawling demographic: unmarried women. The "unmarried" bloc is emerging as this year's trendy political moniker, the granddaughter of the coveted "soccer moms" and "NASCAR dads" micro-targeted by campaigns past.

So what's the reason for wooing unmarried female voters - whom the targeters define as anybody not wearing a ring?

A quarter of all eligible voters - 53 million - are unmarried women, according to an October study by the influential liberal polling firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, but 20 million did not vote in the most recent presidential election.

"They have the power to reshape American politics further, if they vote," according to the Greenberg Quinlan Rosner study. "Unmarried women have the potential to emerge as the 'Democrats' Evangelicals.' "

They're generally younger and have less household income than their married sisters, and they are turned off by the tit-for-tat repartee of political campaigns and the ensuing horse-race media coverage. And for the first time in a presidential race, there are as many unmarried women in America as married.

The key to appealing to them, said Ann Lewis, a senior strategist for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign, is "to tap into their social networks," both online and offline.

What binds unmarrieds of all stripes are economic issues, said Lewis, who prefers the term "single anxious female" because "there's a lot of anxiety about economic issues." While 43 percent of unmarried women have household income of less than $30,000 annually, according to the 2005 American Community Survey, a similar portion of married women earn more than $75,000. More often than unmarried men, unmarried women are taking care of children or are responsible for the health of an older relative.

Pollsters say their research shows that the unmarrieds are in the mood for changing not just who is in office, but how government works.

"These women are leading different lives and they want people to know it," said Page Gardner, founder of Women's Voices, Women's Vote (www.wvwv.org), a nonpartisan outfit that is targeting 3 million single women. Gardner said the campaign will improve on its 2004 get-out-the-vote effort and already has heard an increased sense of urgency from its audience. "They're really paying attention, and they know what's at stake," she said.

The Clinton campaign - the most financially and organizationally formidable ever launched for a female candidate - is piquing interest among women. About 20 percent of the women polled last month by Lifetime Television, a cable network aimed at women, said they were more likely to vote because Clinton was running.

Despite the attention, unmarrieds say they're not too keen on being the political flavor of the quadrennial. "It offends me when politicians categorize me in some way," said Gloria Crabbe, a 76-year-old retired lawyer who lives in Rossmoor and has been widowed 18 years. "Why do we all have to be soccer moms or unmarrieds?"

"Even this is a scam," Harrell, the film industry worker, said of the minting of the "unmarried" target group. "Instead of trying to figure out how to come after single women, how about trying to figure out how to help me get health care? I don't have health care. Or try to help people to figure out how to buy a house in San Francisco."

Over several days, The Chronicle chatted informally with groups of unmarried women in the Bay Area to identify what is important to them and collect their views on the 2008 presidential race.

Carmen Cortez gets up at 7 a.m. to clean houses in San Francisco for three hours. Then she goes to the SEIU Local 87 office, where she volunteers to help members of the janitors union navigate bureaucracy and translate for them. From 5 p.m. to 1 a.m., she works as a union janitor, scrubbing bathrooms and emptying the wastebaskets in San Francisco high-rise offices.

She immigrated to Fresno from El Salvador in 1974, sent by her family to live with her sister - and to get away from a man they didn't want her to wed. She got married, had three children and was divorced by the time she was 23. She gained her citizenship and has worked two jobs ever since in order to raise her children alone.

Gasoline has become so expensive that she tries not to use her car on the weekends much, meaning she doesn't visit her granddaughter in Daly City as often as she'd like. "It used to cost $40 a week to buy gas, now it costs $60," she said.

Yet when asked her top concern, Cortez said: "Peace. When I had my kids, I encouraged them to go to the military. No. Not anymore. I don't want them to fight for something that is somebody else's business. We need to find a way to bring all of the soldiers home."

Sitting nearby, 31-year-old Teresa Navarro nodded her head. "Paz," said Navarro, who moved from Mexico nine years ago and since has been granted asylum to remain. Neither she nor Cortez has had friends or family members killed or wounded in the war in Iraq. But Navarro's father was a police officer in Mexico for nearly 30 years, and she knows the anxiety of waiting for a loved one to come home.

But Navarro's more immediate concerns are economic. She is on strike from the janitorial job she held in San Francisco. Six years ago, she was diagnosed with cervical cancer, and she has been cancer-free after receiving chemotherapy treatments. But she has no health care coverage and lives with her mother in El Cerrito.

Navarro is studying theology remotely from a school in Los Angeles with the goal of becoming a Christian minister in three years. Until then, she studies during the day and, when there is no strike, scrubs two floors of an office building at night.

As for politics, Cortez is clear about who she wants to be president. "Hillary Clinton," she said. "After Bush, we can have a lady who can do a good job, who is strong and is well prepared to do the job."

Navarro isn't following the race. "She is the wife of (Bill) Clinton, no?"

Four Rossmoor residents showed up early for their chat in a common room at the lush retirement community. "Everybody at Rossmoor shows up a half hour early for everything," said Helene Schneider, a 78-year-old retired optician and widow.

"Well, except me," 72-year-old Marcia Elefant said and laughed. "I show up a half hour late, just to show them."

Financial concerns aren't at the top of the list here. The women have health care coverage and would like to see everybody have the same. They want the war to end, but the lone Republican thinks the United States should remain in Iraq "until the job is done." All are regular cable news watchers who banter over their partisan differences, but they agree on one topic: the United States isn't what it used to be. The schools aren't as good, a public university education costs as much a private one used to, the nation's reputation abroad is terrible, corporate CEOs make too much, and the politicians - oh, don't get them started.

"I'm embarrassed that the United States has lost so much standing abroad," said Crabbe, the retired lawyer and a former Republican who has switched her party registration to Democratic. "I'd like to be proud to be an American again."

"The reason that these politicians can't get anything done is that they all owe each other a favor," said Moschel, the GOP supporter. "You did this for me, so I have to do this for you. So by the time they get elected, they can't do what the people elected them to do."

These women were born not too many presidential cycles after the suffrage movement, so they all nodded at the significance of Clinton's candidacy. But beyond that ... well ...

"I'm tickled to see that a woman is running," said Crabbe. "But whether she'd be my favorite, I'm not so sure. Then again, the people I like - like (Delaware Democratic Sen. Joseph) Biden - don't have a prayer."

Sitting in a cafe in San Francisco's Castro neighborhood, three single lesbians commiserate about growing up in politically and religiously conservative families.

"The only thing that my conservative Southern Baptist family and I agree on is to disagree about everything," said 22-year-old Lauren Fash, who moved to San Francisco from her native Atlanta a year ago to study film. Back in Georgia, her brother is an officer in the local Young Republicans club and teases her about "living in the city of confusion."

All three are regular voters, but suspicious about politicians' motives. They have little time for the daily inter-campaign warfare, two don't regularly follow the news. All are renters, sharing apartments with friends, and want to hear how a politician will help provide more equality - both in pay for women and for civil rights for gays and lesbians.

"No matter if you're a single woman or not, people want health care and quality pay and equal opportunity," said Leanne Pittsford, a 26-year-old database coordinator.

One leaned toward Sen. Barack Obama, and two were supporters of Clinton - but not because she's a woman.

"I want to vote for her because she's intelligent and strong and has learned a lot over the years," Harrell said.

Sitting in a tea room in Oakland, three white-collar unmarried women talk about the campaigns so far - and none is impressed.

"It's all done for TV - there's no substantive thinking going on thus far," said Joan Levinson, a 79-year-old retired UC Berkeley employee who made a documentary a few years ago and is an anti-war activist with a group called Grandmothers Against the War. "And the guy I like - (Ohio Democratic Rep. Dennis) Kucinich - I know he'll never win. He's short and he's got no pizzazz."

These women live in Berkeley and Oakland, the darkest blue patch in blue-state America. They read voraciously online and off - from the Guardian newspaper in England to the liberal blog the Huffington Post to Utne Reader to mainstream outlets. Here over tea, the conversation revolves around ideas that have rarely have been mentioned in the dozens of presidential debates. They talk about nonviolent conflict resolution and "empire-building" and wish that Kucinich's long-standing push for a federal Department of Peace would get more of a public airing.

"I'd like to see a moratorium on talking about religion in political campaigns," said Nancy Friedman, a 57-year-old branding and marketing consultant who lives in Oakland. "I'm repelled by the need to be holier-than-thou when people run for political office. There has to be a separation between church and state."

Lucy Perry understands why some of her friends in the Bay Area don't vote, but find their public calling through volunteering. Several friends joined her last year to help victims of Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana. "They're much more engaged in volunteering because they can see the tangible results of what they're doing," said Perry, 33, who is a Berkeley Web designer. "Whereas, with politics, you don't always see that tangible result."

As for whom she'd like to see in the White House, Perry said, "I'm sad because I wish there was a better woman candidate. But given the choices available to us, I might end up voting for her."

She'd love to see a Gov. Bill Richardson-Sen. Barack Obama ticket, but then she confessed to her ideal candidate: "Oprah. I really wish she would run."